What a day!

This morning, I reluctantly decided to rip out everything I had done on my new Fantasy sweater because it was coming out too wide, and I didn’t want a sweater with dropped shoulders. I reduced the number of stitches across the back from 86 to 78 and started over. So far, I much happier with the result, and I think it’s going to work out fine. I also think this will mean that the yarn will go a little farther.

I had intended to leave for the Smiley’s sale by 10:45, aiming to get there at 11:30, but I ended up on the road later than that. By the time I stopped at the bank for some cash and then stopped at a gas station, I was about 30 minutes behind my projected schedule. I got to the hotel at noon.

The first thing that happened was that someone I didn’t recognize came up to me after I stepped into the hotel to tell me how much she loves this blog. Thanks Mary! Keep reading. It’s a delight to have you here.

Then I got to the corridor that leads to the conference room that Smiley’s uses, and there was a long line of people waiting to get in. I struck up conversations with the women immediately ahead of me in the line and the women immediately behind me. Finally, I decided that if we were going to have to wait a long time — and it was obvious that we were — then I wanted to get my knitting out of the car and work on it in line. Honestly, I thought everybody would agree that this was a good idea. But nobody else wanted to do it. Some of the women behind me held my place, and I went back to the car for my Fantasy sweater, which was only a few rows long because I had already ripped out the previous version.

So I started knitting in line and people started asking me what I was making and what pattern I was using. You know all the answers to this from my previous blogs. Before long, I was showing people how to purl the German/Russian/Combination way, where the knit stitches end up facing the opposite way from the purled stitches. And then we got to talking about this blog, and everybody wanted the address to find it. I took a few photos of the line and the nice ladies from Little Egg Harbor who were standing in line with me. But I didn’t have my digital camera, so I used the cell phone, and the photos are still in the cell phone. I’ll try to get them up tomorrow.

While all this was going on, Cindy Becker and a friend of hers from the South Brunswick Library Group showed up. They were on their way out, having been in the sales room already. Cindy got some great brown alpaca yarn, and her friend had a big garbage bag full of the yarn. You may remember Cindy from my June visit to the South Brunswick Library Group and my August visit to the Woods Edge Alpaca farm.

When I got to the sales room, all the alpaca was sold out. I ended up with 6 skeins of a turqoise/aqua colorway of Red Heart Strata, a self-striping yarn, and 30 hanks of a Filalatura super-cable cotton yarn. This was $3 over my budget, but that doesn’t worry me. If I had bought less quantities to save money, I wouldn’t have enough of either yarn to make a sweater. What would be good about that?

I’m really tired, so I’m going to sign off now, and I’ll get the photos, such as they are, up tomorrow. Promise.

About Pam MacKenzie

Pam MacKenzie grew up in a real estate family. Her parents were real estate brokers and office managers, and she herself was a licensed agent in the 1970s. But early on, Pam discovered she'd much rather write about the industry than sell. Now in her eighth year as the real estate editor at the Courier News, Pam believes she has the best job at the paper. In this blog, she's on a mission to empower readers to give them a strong understanding of anything and everything that can impact their ability to own a home. And she believes passionately that when you understand the real estate industry in New Jersey, you understand so much more: the education system, economic and racial bias, the way politics works or doesn't work and ecology, to name a few. She invites everybody to leave lots of comments, even when they disagree with her.

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About this Blog

Pam explores local knitting groups and yarn shops, critiques patterns and shares her wisdom on techniques for improving your craft.

About the author

Pam MacKenzie
Our real estate editor, Pam MacKenzie, expresses her creative side in this blog about knitting. Pam learned to knit at age 6, when her friend’s mother made Pam’s doll a dress, and Pam wanted to make more. Her mother wanted her to learn how to sew in high school, but she was afraid of the sewing machines, cutting fabric the wrong way, and the potential that sewing would have for bringing down her grade-point average. Every year, she managed to find a course conflict to avoid sewing classes. But the day after high school graduation, she took her graduation money to a fabric store, bought a kit to make a sweater, taught herself to read patterns and never looked back. These days, she knits a prayer shawl every month, along with sweaters, tote bags, gift bags and other goodies. She also designs many of her projects. Read More About PamE-mail Pam